((I had to rewrite/finish it!))
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One month. Sara Roper had been a free woman for all of one month, exactly.
She’d done her time, even shaved three years off of her ten year sentence with good behavior. Without Dementors in Azkaban, the prison ran things in a relatively humane manner, though the cells, the food, the gloom and the isolation were as damaging to the psyche as ever. But behavior was also observed, now. The former Death Eaters and other mass murderers who beat their hands bloody against the walls, they weren’t lumped right in with the ones who stoically, penitently waited out their time these days.
And wait, one young, then-foolish Death Eater had. She’d watched the changing of the moon through the bars, passed from nineteen, twenty, and onward. Sara Roper did not beat her hands on the slimy walls, she did not gibber madness, she did not shriek out her innocence to whomever would hear. Sara waited. She ate the bland food, she did her hard labor, and she sat in her cell in her ragged prison robes. The now-human guards didn’t wonder how, or why. They knew.
For though she was permitted no mail and no visitors, Sara clung to the outside in the one way she could. She had clung to one small, faded, dimly moving wizard photograph all through her imprisonment, taken six months after the fall of Voldemort.
She’d been held at the Ministry, in much nicer cells, until her son was born. He was small, but strong, tufts of blonde hair lingering in sense memory on her fingertips. It had been the last time she’d seen Jacob, too. They hadn’t been able to tell each other all the things they’d wanted…the cover story was that she’d used him, tricked him, hadn’t really loved him. It kept him out of prison for what she’d coerced him into doing for the Dark Lord, her muggle-born pawn.
But love -was- there. He’d made her better, shown her how blind, childish, futile her choices after school had been, swearing herself in so young. Sara loved him, deeply, but all they got when their son was born was one long, lingering look. And then William was handed over to his father, and Sara was alone. A few days to recover, and then she was shipped off to Azkaban. One female guard had slipped the photo into her hand…her, feeding William, for the first and the last time.
It didn’t matter if they knew how much she loved her son, Sara figured, and she never once hid it in prison. She’d stared at his face every night before sleep. She’d stared at him every morning, before hard labor.
William.
William.
WILLIAM.
The only thing she’d done right in her short, violent and sad life.
And now she was out. She’d kept her head down, she’d done what was asked, and she was free. It was a blessing that she found Apothecary work so easily, really. Though, maybe the Finch-Fletchley’s remembered her story from the gossip at school, from the papers, from the journals they’d all had. Maybe they just knew a damn good potion brewer when they saw one, a woman who knew her supplies and tools, and didn’t judge her for being an ex-con. While not especially socialable, Sara was a knowledgeable salesperson and brewer in their shop.
Sara did like to think, though, that perhaps Sally-Anne remembered Theodore, and was kind to her for his sake. He’d mentioned what a decent sort she was (for a Hufflepuff) back in the day. Good old Theodore Nott…the second-best man Sara had ever known.
It’s on a day just before the start of school, when Sara sees Jamie Summers. He walks into the shiny, sunny and spacious Apothecary in Diagon Alley, and she’s sure she’s seeing a ghost. He’s Jacob back in school, every inch, from the sandy hair falling over his brow, to the prefect’s badge pinned to his Hufflepuff robes. But…no, she shakes her head, tucking the last set of starter Potions kits onto the shelf. His hair is a shade too dark, his eyes a bit too wide-set, mouth broader. The resemblance is striking enough, though, for Sara to realize who it is.
‘Jamie’, she thinks, turning away swiftly. It’s too late, though. The sixteen year old has spotted her, and with a nudge to his classmates, he leaves them and makes a b-line for her. Sara sighs, looking up, a wan smile on her lips even as a wide grin lights up the youngest Summers’ whole face. The dragon-pox scar on his chin dimples, and Sara feels her throat go tight. She’d seen him through that bout…she knows she looks very different too. She’s only twenty-six, but there’s gray at her temples that Azkaban put there, and she’s paler and thinner than ever. Still, her eyes and skin are bright, and before she knows it she’s being pulled into a tight hug.
“Sara!” Jamie exclaims, releasing her, looking her over, “You’re…! How long have you…?!”
“A month,” Sara’s voice is rough from disuse still, and she clears her throat, “I was going to…but I don’t know how…” She coughs on a laugh, shaking her head, “Prefect! Last I saw you, you weren’t tall enough to see out the front windows without a box…”
“You should come with me,” He squeezes her arms, grinning, “Jake, Will and Julian are meeting me for lunch at The Leaky before the train comes, you…he’d be so…”
“Would he?” Sara blurts out, wincing, rubbing the place where her dark mark had been burned away, through her robes, “…Seven years is a long time, Jamie, I know he’s had to have moved on. I’d….I want to see William but…”
“He hasn’t,” The teenager blurts out just as abruptly, and Sara blinks, eyes wide. Jamie laughs, “He tried, early on, but….no, you were his be-all, end-all, sis.”
Sara feels her chest tighten, eyes darting around. She’d given up Jacob years ago. She’d held onto her son, had told herself she would fight to see him if she had to, but the good, ridiculously optimistic, idealist she’d given her heart to…no, he’d have to have found someone better than her long ago. To hear that he hadn’t, though…
“…Let me see if I can get the hour off.”
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Will and his friends were fighting the forces of evil with utmost strategy. Mind, the forces of evil were a blonde two-year-old Entwhistle with her face smeared in cupcakes, but a boy and his compatriots took what they could get. “She’s a dangerous sorceress in disguise,” Antoine Weasley (the eldest of the Delacour-Weasley brood) exclaimed, and that was enough for the boys. They hexed the poor girl with pretend wands. Emmeline Entwhilste just gurgled and cooed, grinning and flailing, while some space away, all their parents were having lunch.
The doors to the Leaky opened though, and all eyes looked up momentarily. Their parents were looking too, and William observed his father standing up so fast that he knocked over his chair. Antoine frowned, tilting his head. “Who’s that, then?”
“I….I think that’s my mum,” Will gulped, blinking at the prison-aged, yet still young-seeming woman walking through the front doors. He knew her face, had seen it in pictures his whole life. Watching his father move slowly toward her, Uncle Jamie looking sheepish and pleased behind her, William couldn’t help the tentative, slow smile on his face, watching, for the first time, his parents reaching for each other. Slow at first, faces scanning faces, eyes looking hesitant, and then recognizing, and then…oh, and then!
Jacob Summers was grabbing her, clutching her, hands buried in her hair, lips on lips and then he was lifting her off of the ground and…
William was a little boy. He’d had a good life, maybe not getting all the stuff other kids did, all the newest toys, but his dad had been the best dad. Always there, always listening, always reading stories before bed and cutting the crusts off of sandwiches. Something had always been missing though. Even at the happiest, most well-off times, something, someone had been missing. A little boy, and Will knew in this moment that the missing piece was back. The sadness that always followed his good, kind dad around would be gone. And her.
HER.
She was older, and she was more beautiful to him than any picture William had seen of her. Dad had said she was a sad girl when he met her, and that was why she always looked sad in the few pictures Will had. His mum isn’t sad now, her face bright, disbelieving, damp. Will didn’t care if his friends could see, if he hadn’t seen this lady since he was a newborn. He darted out from under the table, and launched himself at her.
Her arms around him….they were everything both of them had always dreamed of.
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